A parishioner asked me to review a new product of National Geographic, written by Jean-Pierre Isbouts, who is an historian of the times of Jesus. The work is called "The Story of Christianity - A Chronicle of Christian Civilization from Ancient Rome to Today"

EWTN contributor Teresa Tomeo was interviewed by Catholic World Report on the issues with the movie "Fifty Shades of Grey." See "'Fifty Shades...' and the Sexual Objectification of Women".

Ms. Fulwiler was surprised, and then had an "Aha!" moment. See "The Courage of Pope Paul VI."

It's understandable that the world's elite news media failed to capture the essence of who Pope Francis is, given their dogged determination to always be ahead of the narrative. One can find a representative sample of the approach taken in the New York Times piece by Rachel Donadio from July of last year, "On Gay Priests, Pope Francis Asks, ‘Who Am I to Judge?’" Who can blame them for failing to understand a personality such as his — compassionate, humble, and yet with firm convictions regarding the difference between truth and falsehood, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, wisdom and folly, material and spiritual, timeless and ephemeral. One must travel far and wide to find such a combination in a world leader these days. Even Catholic journalists found him confusing, although one can come across the occasionally balanced perspective, such as that of Colleen Carroll Campbell in her piece "God and Mammon". And as the English poet, Alexander Pope, noted, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." It matters not the provenance of that hope.

A century ago it could be said that there was a reasonable consensus regarding basic moral questions among Americans and Europeans. Today, that consensus no longer exists, except in isolated pockets or communities. Why the difference?

The Catholic third way is ultimately about recognizing and identifying with the humanity in everyone without diluting the call that we all have to righteousness. Blackstone Films has captured the essence of this challenge in the particular dilemma of homosexual attraction.

While the author of "Our Secular Future", a piece in America Magazine, has some important things to say about the cultural clash between (what I prefer to call) serious Christians and the increasingly dominant secular progressive elites, the comments that follow the article point to dissent even to his employment of the term "Catholic". Given all the controversy over the meaning of the word "Catholic" and who is allowed, or not allowed, to apply that term to themselves, I propose the following solution:

Debates like that touted in "Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham" have never impressed me. In the first place, I've never enjoyed a debate between amateurs that pretends to be serious. In the second place, I've been exposed to much more challenging debates, for example, that between Bertrand Russell and Jesuit Fr. Frederick C. Copleston. (See "Fr. Copleston vs. Bertrand Russell". The debate between Bertrant Russell and G.K.